‘Justified’ Discussion: ‘And Suppose… He Just Went Fishing’

There’s plenty to get to from last night’s episode of Justified, and we will get to all of it in a moment, but first I think it’s important to point out that the last 10 minutes spoke volumes about Raylan Givens. Moments after having sex with his new social worker lady friend, he listened to her tell a heart-wrenching story about having to remove an abused and neglected child from a home while the father threatened her with violence, and by the time that story bleeped and blorped itself through his thinker, the lesson that popped out on the other side was “Hey, I can get the court to remove young Kendall Crowe from his brother’s custody because he was working behind the bar at a whorehouse, and I’ll go enforce the order by myself, with no back-up, in a room full of murderers, even though her story specifically included the phrase ‘He’d have beat me to death if the police weren’t there.'” I’m no psychologist, but that might not be the takeaway a mentally healthy person pulls from all that. It worked, thanks mainly to Kendall Crowe being the only grown-up in the room, but yeah, our hero is a bit of a sociopath. Don’t ever forget that.

Oh, and one other note: Boyd’s hair. Especially when he was meeting with Ava and Johnny in the jail. I mean, we’ve seen it spiked up to the heavens so often that sometimes it doesn’t even register anymore, but this was the first time I can remember seeing it also spiked backwards out from the back of his head in profile. It looked kind of like he dunked his head in a liquid-y gel product and then drove there at 100mph on a motorcycle, sans helmet. Amazing. One day I’m just going to collect 100 screencaps of his hair in various states of electrified disarray and post them all here with no explanation or captions. It will be my finest work.

And now, the highlights:

Dewey and Wade’s adventure in the woods was one part The Blair Witch Project, one part the “Pine Barrens” episode of The Sopranos, and one part Homeward Bound, all shaken up and garnished with a dash of Three Stooges. Or, if you prefer a different analogy, it was like a very dark episode of Benny Hill that someone slowed down and stripped the music from.

In a season full of mind-bending pronunciations by the Crowe family (Daryl’s attempts at “cousin” and “business,” to name two), Dewey’s work with the word “Webelo” is now the gold standard.

Refresh my memory, which Psalm is this from again?

I think Raylan/Tim is my third favorite Raylan pairing on the show, coming in behind Raylan/Boyd and Raylan/Art, and just ahead of Raylan/Wynn, Raylan/Rachel. It’s close, and subject to change from episode to episode, but I think that’s where I’m at now.

That said, we were long, long overdue for some Tim sarcasm, and “History of violence, in a hurry somewhere, with a gun, victim was a CI against him… I say we let him go” really hit the spot.

Actually, that whole scene with Raylan, Boyd, and Tim in the bar was fantastic. I kind of want to transcribe the whole thing, from “I’m not armed, as such, just transporting goods from Point A to Point B” and “And suppose… he just went fishing…” all the way until they let Boyd go. This show does that type of back and forth dialogue as well as any on television.

This Boyd vs. Tim Scrabble game… it was a blood bath, yes?

Let’s run down a few things we learned about Danny Crowe last night: He has a male dog named Chelsea who has giant balls, and he doesn’t take kindly to lawmen pointing this out while standing on top of the cars parked in his lawn; he sometimes wears sleeveless flannel shirts with no pants or underwear; he’s extremely trigger-happy; and he is very concerned when the bar runs out of Wild Turkey.

Raylan found Wade’s body thanks to a murder of crows, after Wade was quite literally “murdered” by “Crowes.” There are layers here. Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at those birds so much. You know, if they’re gonna be helpful.

There’s something weird about hearing Raylan talk about “pinging the GPS” and whatnot. Just doesn’t sound right coming out of his mouth. Like hearing your parents say “Twitter.”

Okay, circling back to the stuff with the jail, am I the only one who thought the giant prison guard tasked with protecting Ava Crowder looked a little bit like a roided-out version of Mellie from Scandal? I am, aren’t I? Crap. Look, there’s no reason for this to get weird. It was just a thought.

The whole time that little dude was trying to corner Ava, I just kept picturing her kabonging him with a frying pan. Ava don’t play. You picked the wrong one, pipsqueak. Protection or not.

And speaking of Ava not playing, hooooooooo boy. Oh, did you get put in “the friend zone” one time? Yeah, well Johnny Crowder confessed his love for Ava, and she confessed that she’d like to see him strung up and bleeding out.

“I’m as serious as the Pope, Johnny.”

Compare and contrast: Johnny Crowder from last night…

… and Nicky Augustine from last season.

Poor Art. Flew all the way up to Detroit on short notice just to find out the guy he needs to talk to was in his backyard all along. Jesus Christ, Detroit Marshal’s office. You couldn’t, like, take some notes, ask Art’s questions, and relay the message? Get it together. That was wasteful government spending at its most egregious. (But at least Art got a nice little Justin Bieber burn in there. AND SO TIMELY. I guess it all worked out in the end.)

Well, it looks like Raylan’s “STAY OUTTA KENTUCKY, BUB” speech to Hot Rod didn’t work. Now it’s Boyd’s turn. And Boyd’s already stacking the bodies Raylan just threatened to stack. Which is funny, because Raylan is usually the man of action, and Boyd is usually the man of words. Things are getting intense. This is terrific news.

Okay, that sums it up. Feel free to chime in below. As always, thanks to Chet Manley for the GIFs. Please do not leave me for dead in the woods after shooting me and beating me with a Wee-buh-lo shovel.

So perhaps I’m late to the game here — I haven’t seen it posted otherwise — but Creepy Short Prison Guard is Danny from Mad Men? Right? I’d love to see Boyd and Roger Sterling give this guy a beatdown.

@ Danger….I would switch the order of pairings. Of course Raylan/ Boyd is always the best along with Art but after last week, Raylan/Rachel has got to be third.

I’d like to submit that the scene between Boyd, Ava and Johnny was the most powerful of the night though. This is shaping up to be a very intense love triangle equaling Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene- only much less holy.

What you wrong was- I think it was the black Detroit Marshall that trashed Beiber and not Art but it was a colossal waste of taxpayer money and why the hell should Art even care if Raylan had a hand in the execution of a thug.

Oh, and Chet…I’m still waiting for the gif of the blonde social worker’s sexy booty….please comply.

I don’t know how long Boyd can stay “dead,” seeing as he’s a pretty prominent member of Harlan County and has a hand in various deals. And a bar. And apparently goes to the county jail to see Ava. Doesn’t seem like this ploy will last long.

My thoughts on the episode. I would never want to play Scrabble with Boyd. Man knows a whole lot of words. And for some reason I have a feeling Art will cover for anything That comes up from the Raylan investigations.

I thought it was a little strange that they would let both Boyd and Johnny in to see Ava at the same time. With that being said, I have never been to prison nor have I ever known anyone who has been to prison, so I cannot speak intelligently on the matters of how prison visitations work. Perhaps Demaryius Thomas of the Denver Donkeys could chime in on this subject for us???

There was only one flaw in last night’s episode- Anyone notice that when the police found Messer in the woods they said they also found a .32 caliber shell? But when Dewey raised his gun to Messer in the morning the side of the pistol clearly said .38.

There’s almost no way Dewey’s gun said “.38” on it. .38 cal semiautomatic pistols are extremely rare. Most .38’s are revolvers because standard .38 ammo is rimmed, rimmed cases don’t function in magazine-fed weapons (with very rare exceptions). .32 cal makes sense because it is a common caliber for small pistols, like the one Dewey had. It also fits into the plot, Messer was able to fight back and escape because he was shot with a very small round. 38’s pack a much larger punch.

I’m almost sure I read “.380” on the slide of the gun when he pointed it at Wade on the ground, which is .380 ACP (Automatic Centerfire Pistol), which are fairly common. Then they said it was a .32. CONTINUITY ERROR.

@Palin No, you can only fire the correct size cartridge in most guns.

380 ACP is basically a short 9mm. The reduced powder load and being gut-shot as Wade was would probably take him a long time to die if it didn’t hit a vital area.

It doesn’t matter because Dewey shot him in a completely different place than where the body is found. If anything, the difference will prove that Dewey is the luckiest criminal ever. Assuming the bullet went through the body, the shell won’t tie him to the murder.

Wynn Duffy and Art Mullen in the same room? Someone’s been peeking at my Christmas wishlist. I feel like Cow Patty Bingo would be a more appropriate Justified fundraiser, but sure, shooting with Deputy Givens is a close second.

As much as I like Lone Wolf Raylan, he really needs to take backup more often. Art is slowly realizing this, but he needs to put out a written office policy that Raylan needs to be rolling with a partner during office hours. The showdown at the whorehouse could easily have been avoided with a partner. And really, I want to see more banter between Raylan and his amazing fellow marshalls. Tim and Rachel get about 15 minutes of screen time a season and that is far too little.

DG, you should’ve figured out by now that Boyd’s hair is analogous to Goku or Vegeta’s hair in Dragon Ball Z. Spikier = Boyd hitting another level of super saiyan = SOME SERIOUS SHIT IS ABOUT TO GO DOWN.

Anyone think, assuming Johnny does not die in a horrible way in the coming episodes, Ava will eventually “come to her senses” as Johnny put it and ask Johnny for help? Ava and Boyd’s relationship will probably get challenged to the breaking point sometime this season .Ava asking Johnny for help could be an interesting aspect to go into the final season.

I see it as a true “love triangle” Johnny confessed his love for Ava last season. Notice how he told Boyd “you shoulda done right by me, I was a believer” I tend to think Ava ends up with Johnny and Boyd ends up dead for real in the end.

Anyone else fearing (or giddy – can’t figure out which one I am yet) that next season may see Raylan in an non-Federal role? I can see the writers setting the stage to see him booted out of the Marshalls for Nicky Augustine and next seasons, going full HAM law-minded vigilante on all Harlan outlaws.

Sammy Tonin was a loudmouth. Just because he claimed that he had a marshal “in his pocket” doesn’t necessarily mean Raylan took any financial benefit from him. When Art eventually confronts Raylan about his involvement in Nicky Augustine’s murder, I imagine Raylan will try to explain it as no worse than any other deal the Feds would make with a criminal to someday snare a bigger criminal.

, Sammy Tonin didn’t claim to have a marshall , just a federal,. so can we assume that somehow the F.B.I agent that Nickie Augustine killed in Winn Duffy’s motorcoach could be fingered for that. If Raylan was in Sammy Tonin’s pocket why would he call the office and not Raylan’s cell phone ?